April 26th Cyber News Roundup

Hackers use developing countries as testing ground for new ransomware attacks

Cyber attackers are experimenting with their latest ransomware on businesses in Africa, Asia and South America before targeting richer countries that have more sophisticated security methods.

Hackers have adopted a “strategy” of infiltrating systems in the developing world before moving to higher-value targets such as in North America and Europe, according to a report published on Wednesday by cyber security firm Performanta.

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Mandiant: Attacker dwell time down, ransomware up in 2023

the global median dwell time for attackers fell to its lowest point since the company began tracking the metric in 2011. Dwell time, which is the number of days that an attacker is present in an environment before being detected, decreased nearly a week -- from 16 days in 2022 to 10 days last year.

Mandiant observed an increase in ransomware activity in 2023. Investigations involving ransomware rose to 23% last year, compared to 18% in 2022. "This brings the percentage of ransomware-related intrusions back to where it was previously in 2021," the report read.

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FBI, Europol Say Akira Ransomware Has Drained $42M from 250 Firms

Akira, a ransomware group, has drained $42 million from 250 firms since March 2023, said the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Europol, CISA, Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), and the Netherlands’ National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NL) in a joint statement.